Microelectronic manufacturing techniques have led to the miniaturization of numerous devices. Mobile phones, personal digital assistant devices, and digital cameras are very common examples of the miniaturization trend.
One device that has not seen the advantage of microelectronic manufacturing techniques is the printer. Commercially available printers are large compared to many of the devices they could support. For instance, it is impractical to carry a color printer for the purpose of instantly printing photographs taken with known compact digital cameras.
A compact printhead has been described in co-pending United States patent applications filed simultaneously to the present application and hereby incorporated by cross reference:
Our DocketUSSNNo.Our Title6428133IJ52USInk Jet Printhead Having a Moving Nozzle withan Externally Arranged Actuator6526658IJM52USMethod of Manufacture of an Ink Jet PrintheadHaving a Moving Nozzle with an ExternallyArranged Actuator6390591MJ58USNozzle Guard for an Ink jet Printhead7018016MJ62USFluidic seal for an ink jet nozzle assembly6328417MJ63USInk Jet Printhead Nozzle Array
Known ink jet printers are only capable of printing dots in a bi-level fashion whereas known image capture devices (cameras) capture images in continuous tones. It is known in the prior art to transform the continuous tone captured images to bi-level images for printing. The known techniques are processing intensive. A more efficient processing method is required for a compact printer system.